Europe and the Atlantic

In 1999 British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook confirmed that, in addition to Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas, residents of the other 11 United Kingdom Overseas Territories (formerly Dependent Territories) would be offered British citizenship on condition that those territories reformed their internal laws to conform with international standards.

Complaints in January by Spanish fishermen that they had been unlawfully denied access to the waters off Gibraltar increased tensions once again between Spain and the U.K. The European Commission postponed consideration of subsequent accusations that Spanish authorities were deliberately causing long delays at the Spain-Gibraltar border.

In March Britain’s Prince Charles was welcomed to the Falklands at the end of his tour of South America, which included a strained trip to Argentina. In July, after weeks of negotiations—including the first formal talks held between Falklanders and Argentines since the 1982 war—air links between the islands and Chile, suspended since April, were reestablished. Argentine journalists, who were among the first to fly to the Falklands, reported a hostile reception.

St. Helena faced a crisis in November when the RMS St. Helena, the remote island’s only form of transport for goods and passengers, broke down and was stranded for repairs in Brest, France, unable to make its semiannual delivery. Authorities eventually arranged for temporary help from a passenger ship, a chartered freighter, and two container ships.

In February elections to Greenland’s 31-seat home-rule parliament, the main government party, Siumut, remained the largest party, despite having dropped from 14 to 11 seats. In August a court ruled in favour of 53 Inuits who had sued the Danish government on behalf of 611 families who lost their homes and hunting grounds to make way for the expansion of a U.S. air base in 1953; the plaintiffs won collective compensation and received a formal apology from Denmark’s Prime Minister Poul Rasmussen.

Caribbean and Bermuda

The governing coalition retained office in the March general election in Anguilla. The Anguilla United Party and its ally, the Anguilla Democratic Party, each won two of the seven seats in the House of Assembly; the Anguilla National Alliance won the other three. In the Turks and Caicos, the incumbent Peoples Democratic Movement captured 10 of the 13 Legislative Council seats in the general election, while the Progressive National Party held on to the remaining 3 seats. The Virgin Islands Party fought off a challenge from the newly formed National Democratic Party and actually improved its position, capturing 7 of the 13 Legislative Council seats in the British Virgin Islands; the NDP won 5.

In the Netherlands Antilles, however, no party secured a dominant position in the Curaçao elections in May. The National People’s Party, led by federal Prime Minister Susanne (“Suzy”) Camelia-Römer, obtained the same number of seats (five) as its main rival, former prime minister Miguel Pourier’s Antillean Restructuring Party. Other parties won varying numbers of seats, which made it difficult to put together a working coalition.

The opposition United Bermuda Party, defeated in the November 1998 general election by the Progressive Labour Party for the first time in 30 years, spent most of 1999 attempting to restore its appeal to voters and jettison its perceived image as a “white party,” unwelcoming to black voters.

Problems associated with offshore banking continued to bedevil the Cayman Islands, where a disgraced New York banker’s accusations that the islands knowingly abetted tax evasion caused a flurry of denials by officials in August. In September the government was obliged to agree to an investigation of two accounts (amounting to U.S. $2.7 million) in the Cayman branch of the Bank of New York, held in the name of Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin’s daughter. U.S. officials were investigating the New York bank for money laundering.

Two U.S. military aircraft bombed a lookout post in Puerto Rico by accident during exercises over the island of Vieques in April, killing one civilian and injuring three others and a military observer. Residents of Vieques, 75% of which was occupied by the U.S. Navy, had been campaigning for years against the use of the island for bombing practice. Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello wrote to Pres. Bill Clinton requesting an “immediate” and “permanent” end to weapons training on the island. This was granted temporarily.

Despite exports of canned tuna to the U.S. market worth some U.S. $400 million a year, the government in American Samoa struggled to meet its obligations. In October the governor had to approve a budget for only three months because of uncertainties over revenue. Fish processor Starkist agreed to pay corporate tax in advance to meet the government payroll; the government placed a freeze on new spending. Meanwhile, the developing garment industry attracted controversy over conditions for immigrant Asian labour.

In the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the government opposed U.S. proposals to extend federal immigration law, a measure that would seriously affect the viability of the garment industry there. On Saipan the spreading effects of polychlorinated biphenyl chemical waste dumped in the 1960s brought about the closure of the Tanapag cemetery and neighbouring areas as well as a debate on responsibility for clearance. At Johnston Atoll the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency secured permission to incinerate previously undiscovered chemical waste from mortar and rocket components. The U.S. government confirmed that, along with Hawaii, Johnston Atoll, Guam, and Midway had all been storage centres for nuclear weapons.

In June New Caledonia’s new, elected Assembly, which had limited legislative powers in domestic affairs, met for the first time. The conservative Rally for Caledonia in the Republic, which won the largest number of seats, could not secure a majority and shared government with the pro-independence Kanak National Liberation Front. New Caledonia was admitted as an observer to the 1999 South Pacific Forum, but the Melanesian Spearhead (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu) decided to maintain its monitoring of progress toward self-determination for New Caledonia. In French Polynesia the government was fined CFPF 204 million (nearly U.S. $2 million) for having failed to maintain public order during demonstrations over the French government’s resumption of nuclear testing in 1995.

Elections brought about the return of a Cook Islands Party–National Alliance Party coalition, but shortly after the election there was a change of prime minister from Sir Geoffrey Henry to Joe Williams. The government struggled to maintain a majority, especially when a postelection hearing resulted in one seat’s being declared vacant. The government survived a confidence vote (13–12) in September but was destabilized by opponents. Williams dismissed two ministers and then resigned before the new parliamentary session. The new prime minister was Terepai Maoate.

In March elections in Niue, former premier Frank Lui lost his seat, and Sani Elia Lakatani was chosen as his replacement. The government faced a confidence vote in November, but Lakatani survived. In June ministerial salaries had been cut by 40%. Despite assurances given in 1975, New Zealand indicated its intention to phase out aid.

Macau, the last dependent state in East Asia, peacefully reverted from Portuguese to Chinese sovereignty in December 1999. (SeeSidebar.)